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With the recent discussions about the room rates at the Riviera, peoples thoughts on the convention, and some name calling in a couple of posts on thechipboard I have decided it is time to write about my experience at the 2007 convention, my first, and thoughts about the 2008 convention. Please keep in mind these my opinions only and I am a very inexperienced collector and club newbie.
First off a little about myself, I live in southeastern Idaho. My wife and I normally make it to Vegas about once every 18 months. We are not heavy gamblers. I would consider our income to be about in the middle of middle class. The cost of going to the convention, airlines etc are a very large factor if we can go or not. What I collect is limited to chips from the Las Vegas strip and downtown casinos. I have been a club member for 2 years now and need to renew this month for my third year.
I decided to attend my first convention in 2007 for a variety of reasons. We had made the decision to go to one of three events in Vegas last year, the American Society for Industrial Security (ASIS) convention, the Global Gaming Expo, or the chip convention. Both the ASIS convention and the Global Gaming Expo had training seminars that would have been valuable in my career. All three conventions would have cost about the same in travel and hotel, but the ASIS and Global Gaming would have cost about $2,000 - $3,000 more for admittance and the training sessions. I am not trying to imply that the club should charge for the educational seminars, basically it came down to the fact that I didn’t have the money to spend on the other two conventions.
For my first convention, and due to economics I chose to arrive on the Monday before the convention rather than closer to the start of the convention. I was able to pay for the increase in room and food costs by significantly lower airfares. This was in large part due to the fact that our town has Allegiant Air (very low prices compared to Delta) and they only fly on Mondays and Fridays. . My wife came down on Friday and we both left on the following Monday. Since this was also our vacation, after my wife arrived, I pretty much stopped doing convention activities and spent time with her.
I chose to stay at the Riviera for the Monday through Friday night because I didn’t want the hassle of going to another hotel. Sure, I found some others that were cheaper but I would have spent more money and time for travel to the Riviera than I would have saved on the room. I had reservations about staying at the Riviera because I had always heard that it was a dump. We I got to my room, I could tell that it was very old based on the layout; however, I saw that it had been recently remodeled, new carpet, paint, and furnishings. The most important factor about the room was that it was CLEAN. While the room wasn’t large mini-suite and didn’t have a large flat screen TV it was still nice. Besides I don’t need or want that fancy of a room. For Saturday and Sunday night we moved to the Luxor for a jacuzzi suite, remember this is also my wife’s vacation. We might have continued to stay at the Riviera but their website did not show any suites at that time, plus we wanted to be at the other end of the strip.
Now for my experience at the convention. Since I got there on Monday, there wasn’t much happening regarding the convention. I went to the Spalshbar and introduced myself to several people. Everybody I met at the convention was friendly, but two people went out of their way to make me feel welcome. I know I will probably get flamed for mentioning these two people but they are Joe Pavlik and Chuck Smorse. Joe made the effort to show me around the Riviera on Monday night and then invited me to go with him to dinner with him, Chuck Smorse, Dawn Satter, Mike Pasternack (sp), and David Spragg. Both Chuck and Joe made sure I went (drove me) to thechipboard get together at the Palm’s and introduced me to people there. During the course of talking with Joe, I mentioned that I had volunteered to help set up on Tuesday morning. When I arrived to set up, Joe was there and said he hadn’t volunteered but he helped anyway. Through out the next several days both Joe and Chuck went out of their way to make sure I had a good time.
I attended several of the educational seminars and enjoyed them. As far as the bourse floor, I meet several dealers that were willing to take the time to explain things to a newbie and treat me right. Thanks Tyrus!!!!!!!!!!!!!! These dealers got my money. I also need to thank Terry Schaffer who gave me some advice and information on making changes to my Collector’s Assistant database.
Now on to the 2008 convention. I don’t know if I will go or not, it is not a lack of desire on my part but a lack of funds. I have to replace my furnace in the next month so that will be taking a large portion of my excess funds. As far as the recently announced increase in the cost of the room causing an uproar on the club board and thechipboard, my opinion is that I will being staying at the Riviera if I go. I don’t care about the rumors of the club officers getting special perks. Don’t know if that is true or not. These people spend a lot of their personal time, for which they don’t receive compensation, making this club a better organization. I understand that fact that the casino needs to sell so many rooms in order to recoup their cost of giving/renting us the convention facilities. I would encourage everyone that has a concern about how the money is spent to look at the financial reports and contact the appropriate club officers for additional information. If you still don’t like how things are handled, feel free to run for a club office. For me the convenience of being able to have a short walk to the convention justifies a slightly higher cost in rooms compared to elsewhere.
Respectfully submitted,
Kernan Longua
R-7202
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